Is Virtual PC good enough for MS Office work?

Chazam

Chazam

Apple Virgin
I'm currently doing an I.T course at work and was wondering if Virtual PC is good enough to use as a windows platform using MS Office?
Our tutor insists on using PC's and said i could bring my own laptop if i use Windows and MS Office. I already own Windows ME/2000 PRO and Office 2000 from my old PC.
Please take my iBook's spec into consideration (Specs below)
Thanks!
 
I am using VPC 6.1 with WinXP + OfficeXP on my G4 1ghz. It runs surprisingly fine. I can easily compare the speed to my P2 266Mhz which is fast enough for regular work.
However, I think more ram could be of great support in your case, eventhough I have no idea how you got 266mb mem. ;)
I am wondering why your tutor is so much against macs. You could use Office X which is quite similar to Office 2000
 
Zammy-Sam said:
I am using VPC 6.1 with WinXP + OfficeXP on my G4 1ghz. It runs surprisingly fine. I can easily compare the speed to my P2 266Mhz which is fast enough for regular work.
However, I think more ram could be of great support in your case, eventhough I have no idea how you got 266mb mem. ;)
I am wondering why your tutor is so much against macs. You could use Office X which is quite similar to Office 2000
Click to expand...
That's what i was thinking of doing....
How much is a student licence of Office X compared to Virtual PC?
 
Office 2004 Student Edition (for Mac) is $150.

Virtual PC 6.1 is $130, plus in theory you're supposed to have a seperate, licensed copy of Windows for it. With WinXP Home it's $220.

You might be able to find this software for slightly cheaper, but I think you'd be much happier just owning a copy of Office that RUNS on your Mac, assuming your instructor will allow/support it. It does have some differences that throw some people off if they're PC-only people...
 
How long does your course go? If less than 30days, you might want to use the testdrive of Office 2004. It has full functionality within 30days. That would be a great opportunity to test it all and finally decide whether you will buy it or not..
 
Doesn't the professional version of Office INCLUDE VirtualPC?

For years I've had a PC to do my work stuff, but have been using Virtual PC exclusively for almost 2 years... It worked fine when I dedicated 512MB of my 1GB RAM to it.

However I've just recently switched to Windows Remote Desktop... Now I can remotely control my work PC, and that's MUCH faster than Virtual PC... But this is only an option if you have PC somewhere.
 
Office v. X didn't and still doesn't have VirtualPC 6 included, since it was part of Connectix and not yet Microsoft.
However, Office 2004 professional should have VirtualPC 7 bundled, but it's not yet finished. We have a thread on VirtualPC 7 where we discussed the release date.
 
VirtualPC includes nothing, unless you buy a version of VirtualPC with an OS pack. Virtual PC can be purchased standalone, without any OS, or bundled with a pre-installed OS, like Windows 2000 or XP.

Microsoft Office is a completely separate software package from Virtual PC and Microsoft Windows.
 
My own personal recommendation is to get Office for the Mac for $1.50. I have VPC but I'm not found of it. Its o.k. The native Mac version provides a far slicker interface to the OS and the outside world. (e.g. getting an email attachment into Office inside VPC is not a simple double click like it is with the native Mac version).
 
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